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ABU’L-FARAJ SEJZĪ

ABU’L-FARAJSEJZĪ, 4th/10th century poet of Sīstān, author of several lost works on the art of poetry. Only three couplets have been preserved from his compositions. Abu’l-Faraǰ was an adherent of Abū ʿAlī Sīmǰūrī (d. 387/997) on whose behest he wrote invectives against the Ghaznavids. When Sultan Maḥmūd defeated Abū ʿAlī, he imprisoned the poet but spared his life upon ʿOnṣorī’s intercession. Maḥmūd is said to have given Abu’l-Faraǰ’s confiscated property to ʿOnṣorī; the latter returned half of it to Abu’l-Faraǰ and so earned his gratitude (Dawlatšāh, Taḏkerat al-šoʿarāʾ, Tehran, 1338 Š./1959, pp. 44-46).

Dawlatšāh, and sources dependent on him, make Abu’l-Faraǰ the teacher of ʿOnṣorī and Manūčehrī. This seems unlikely. Manūčehrī lived in his native Dāmḡān until he moved to Ray in 424/1036; and both Manūčehrī and Abu’l-Faraǰ are said to have recited odes in praise of ʿOnṣorī (Taqī-al-dīn Kāšānī, Maǰmaʿ al-qaṣāʿed [written in 1067/1656], cited in M. Dabīrsīāqī’s intro. to Dīvān-e ʿOnṣorī, Tehran, 1342 Š./1963, p. 29).